


a star not felled

by auritas



Category: A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
Genre: Free Verse, Gen, Poetry, born from screaming about the Feels from this book and the book screaming back essentially
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 03:18:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17195516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auritas/pseuds/auritas
Summary: 10 days remain, and alreadysomethingis creeping, scaling the wallsthe long-gone windowpanescurling through the dark tepid waters of the shadowed well —leave me be,she cries,I am yours already.~Mariam’s stay in the Walayat women’s prison.





	a star not felled

**Author's Note:**

> happy birth abi!!!! Please enjoy these tears :')
> 
> (As for everyone else, please enjoy these tears!)

10 days remain, and already

_something_

is creeping, scaling the walls

the long-gone windowpanes

curling through the dark tepid waters of the shadowed well —

 

_leave me be,_ she cries,

_I am yours already._

 

But no one had ever given her a voice,

(and the one woman who did was

nations away by now)

so all _it_ hears

are the shrieks of children in the courtyard,

everything

_its_ to take.

 

* * *

 

9 days remain, and already

word has spread:

that she alone had taken matters into her own hands

had been given charge of her wretched life-dealt hand

had been given the final step

had been given

L i f e .

 

(All she knows is

that she alone had taken matters too far

had taken charge of what was not hers

had taken the final fall

had _taken_ ,

irrevocably,

L i f e .

 

All she knows is that

somewhere out there

a son is without his father,

his own thousand suns,

splendid in his eyes,

~~idol~~

and for that

_she_

is to blame.)

 

_something_

seeps into her bones,

funneling through marrow,

and dimly she knows _it_

_(death)_

and _its_ Brother

(Life)

are really no different:

 

neither would spare her from torment,

in the end.

 

* * *

 

8 days remain, and already

she is a spectre:

 

For what difference did Living make

when _it_ was grinning at her across that final checkerboard sky,

victorious her whole Life,

her king and queen both long cornered

ever since the day she had been born?

 

_something_

spreads to the flesh beneath her fingers,

thins them out until they become branches:

spears in their own right,

alone strong enough to break her bones.

 

* * *

 

7 days remain, and already

everything is fading:

the subdued chatter of the women,

the cries of the children in the mud,

the heat of the daytime sun

~~splendid no longer, fallen from her grace~~

that is just another _burqa_.

 

_something_

is taking, taking, taking

taking and taking

just as _~~death~~ _ Life had always, always done

 

_(neither would spare her from torment,_

_in the end)_

 

and she,

as ever,

knows all she can do is

w a t c h .

 

* * *

 

6 days remain, and already

she has no sense of Life’s passage:

time?

Was that It?

She squints at the sun, rising, overhead, setting,

and only sees

a thousand burning Lives,

destined to be claimed by

_death_

in the end.

 

* * *

 

5 days remain, and already

_something_

has reached her heart:

wracking it,

stealing over every fear and dulling her to _its_ Brother.

 

She knows there is only one thing she can do:

 

w a t c h .

 

* * *

 

4 days remain, and already

_something_ has taken over her mind:

 

a bloodless coup,

her soul Afghanistan

for _it_ to take.

 

~~and then, what is left?~~

 

* * *

 

3 days remain, and already

she is this:

 

a trespasser to Life,

lost property to _death_

 

(and neither will take her in)

 

* * *

 

2 days remain, and already

_it_

is the only thing she knows.

 

* * *

 

1 day remains, and already

dread

of _it_

is all she can see:

How will she greet it? How will she submit?

What will be Life’s final glimpse of her

as she makes this

final change of hands,

from Life to Its _brother_?

 

She is so, so

l o s t

~~and that is what terrifies her most.~~

 

* * *

 

_its_ day has come, and

she is certain of only

one thing:

 

that there is no escaping _this_ , no eluding _it_

even if she longs with more than she can bear

for just another day of That.

 

_its_ footsteps echo down the prison hall

with her to claim:

 

she bows her head,

bids no farewells

 

(no farewells but

_one,_

to a family she had sent away

on the wings of her own burning hope,

as far away from her as Life seems now)

 

and

waits.

 

* * *

 

and so

for a last time,

she falls quietly from Life’s hands:

 

indomitable,

 

a star not felled

 

_(undefeated)_

 

but rather

gone nova,

scattering herself to be a birthlight

for another

 

thousand splendid suns.

 

**Author's Note:**

> had LOTS of stuff going through my head while writing this, so, inspo credits where credit's due:
> 
> \- pretty evident inspiration drawn from these lines out of Maggie Stiefvater's p h e n o m e n a l raven cycle series: "He fell quietly from her arms. He was a king." + "He quietly slid from time"  
> \- also see Sleeping At Last's song "Saturn": "You taught me the courage of stars / before you left / How life carries on / endlessly, even after death" + "I couldn't help but ask / for you to say it all again / I tried to write it down / but I could never find a pen"  
> \- heavy vibe-influence from the Song of the Twelve out of Diane Duane's (ALSO PHENOMENAL!) young wizards series: "not old enough to love as yet / but old enough to die, indeed / the death-fear bites my throat and heart / fanged cousin to the Pale One's breed" + "this is our shame / this is the whole Ocean's glory / hark to the story"  
> \- abi if you're reading this ur gonna h9 me for it but i kept thinking of tris from divergent for some reason hahA  
> \- oh god and. this line from (abi ur REALLY gonna cry now, this is just me projecting all my fandoms onto yours lmao) Ishida Sui's tokyo ghoul series: "when you realize your whole future's gone to shit, all you have left is to live for someone else"  
> \- and none of my writing would be truly mine without some Latin bs behind it! this time it's: "forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit" from vergil's/virgil's aeneid 
> 
> Thank you for reading!!
> 
> Wanna screech with me, at me, to me? I’m @aurltas (that's a lowercase L) on tumblr and twitter!


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